Alright. Let’s be real. Right now I have a morale and motivation problem.
I suspect I’m not alone in this surreal world that has been thrown at us over the previous few months. For example, with the world in the throes of a global pandemic, you’d think there’d be money to be made in Health Care. In reality, employers like Ballad are furloughing workers and cutting hours. Anyone following this blog would have encountered my thoughts on the differences between a National Health Service and the standard for-profit model, and I’m not going to rehash anything here. I’m sure you can guess what I think.
I just mention it to highlight how surreal things are. We need decent healthcare, but in a lockdown, fewer people go to the doctor so there’s less money to be made. So, less hours for healthcare professionals.
Totally insane, I think. But that’s just me.
Schooling At Home.
One group of people here who seem to be putting in a lot of effort are school teachers. Particularly those working with Knox County Schools and those working with the State putting together Teaching Tennessee, though I’m sure there are more where you live. Here, they’re putting together work packets and instructional videos so that kids don’t need to go without some kind of scholastic challenge.
That just leaves me with the challenge of making sure my kids get access to the videos on the local PBS channel, they get time to do the packet work, have time to access the online work their own schools have set for them to do, and still have some time to not go completely insane being stuck at home with Dad for weeks on end.
It’s taken me five revisions of a basic time-table and putting reminders on my phone, but I think I’ve finally cracked it.
I mean, I’m not having a vacation, I don’t see why they should.
Work On The Book.
Yes. Well…
This web site was set up primarily to provide an internet presence and accessibility for an author. Meanwhile, the astute amongst you will have noticed that I haven’t been published yet.
The secondary purpose of this web site was to serve as an accountability blog, and right now, with everything going askew and the world seeming to warp further every day, it’s about the only real source of motivation that I have.
Every Sunday, come rain or shine – or COVID-19 apparently – I’ll put together something that discusses whatever progress and achievements I’ve made over the previous week.
So. What progress have I achieved?
Well, I haven’t reached Chapter 8 for one thing. I’ve made it as far as completing the first scene of Chapter 6, just under 30,000 words in.
One thing I’m doing differently now is I’m tracking how many words I’ve revised as I go. This was to estimate the editing costs I face – currently looking at about $2,351 by my current estimate – but adjusting the Excel spreadsheet gives me the opportunity to see how many words I’ve revised alongside the date. This suggests that in the one hour I’m able to reliably give this project, a over five day week I can cover just about 10,000 words.
At that rate – I’ve just plugged the current word counts from Scrivener into Excel – I’d hoped to be about halfway through right now, but I’m a little over a third. At 10,000 words a week from this point forward, I’m looking at another four weeks to completion.
On the plus side, Chapter 4 went quite quickly despite being the biggest chapter in the book so far, while Chapter 5, less than half the size, took two days of effort that I know exceeded an hour each.
So… Now What?
Assuming that this upcoming week isn’t made substantially more weird and surreal by the COVID crisis getting even worse, I would hope to cover another 10,000 words by Friday, which would just move me from the middle of Chapter 6 to the lofty heights of the tail end of Chapter 7.
…just one bloody chapter and a half…
I hope that we all have a more productive week than that. We’ll see if i can do better in next week’s post.
Stay safe everyone, and keep washing your hands!
Categories: COVID-19, My Life, The Old Man
Andrew Wellington 
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